Transcend

by Natalia Jaster

“Your confidence puts us to shame,” Anger says to Andrew.

  But Andrew wields a lopsided grin. “Why wouldn’t I be confident?” He gestures toward Anger. “Just because I’m surrounded by a god with the olive cheekbones of an elf.” He motions to Malice. “A god with a devil-may-care grin.” He motions to Envy. “And a god who looks like he belongs in a museum.”

  Clearly, Andrew doesn’t give himself enough credit. If he were bisexual and unattached, Envy would have jumped his boyish bones long ago. Envy’s well acquainted with the many flavors of masculine rapture and suspects that Andrew’s tongue tastes like mint—fresh and pure but with a slight, snarky kick.

  Very well. So maybe Love once shared this tidbit with Envy over a round of cranberry spirits. It only confirms what Envy had already guessed.

  He loses track of time, as do the rest of them, silent deliberation lulling the group into reluctant slumber. Envy refuses to rest, refuses Anger’s offer to take over steering for him. For once, he wants to be the leader, cruising them when they need to go.

  From a brook, to a canal, to a river. The passage widens, the water changing its flow, depth, and speed. It licks the boat, the sound hypnotic. It drowns out his thoughts for a while, until a splash snaps him out of the haze.

  His head swings towards the disturbance. A slender, bleached finger dips into the wet surface, creating rings that dance outward and spread like a contagion.

  Sorrow draws her knees up to her chest and loops her free arm around her skirted limbs as she toys with the water. The hunched position makes her look younger, and it resurrects the memories of their upbringing, which also resurrects a particular incident in their past. A string of words, which makes his knuckles bend tightly.

  An ugly god is easy to spot.

  Never mind that. Quickly, he shakes off the recollection.

  Earlier, he’d spied on Sorrow as she counted the arrows in her quiver. He knows why, as they all do. Though Envy might know a bit more about her lost arrow than everyone in this boat.

  What would Sorrow say if he told her?

  The wind teases her hair, concealing part of her profile. Absently, he leans over to get a better look. When that fails to expose more of her, it produces a disturbing crick in his neck.

  “Narcissus loves the water,” she says out of nowhere, her tone as weightless as chiffon, unlike the customarily burlap scrape of her voice.

  It’s highly alien to his ears, so much that he blinks like an imbecile. “Who?”

  “Ugh. Forget it. You’re such a lightarrow.”

  When he fumbles for a witty comeback, she continues to caress the liquid surface. “He was the son of a river god and a nymph. Everyone worshipped his perfect looks and wanted a piece of the pie, but that only made him scorn them.”

  “I know who Narcissus is,” he mutters. “And the assessment sounds only half accurate. I lap up admiration with a spoon.”

  “Are you saying you’re not the least bit vexed that deities are merely interested in your face? Are you saying that’s the only attention you want?”

  His snickers. “I flatter myself on being a connoisseur of envy. As such, I’d say you’re jealous because our people never looked at you with the same ravenous inclinations.”

  Her finger pauses, then abandons the water. Scooting on her backside, Sorrow swivels his way, wiping those unkempt tresses from her visage. “No. All I want is for others to look at me and see the truth, not some flamboyant charade. I don’t have to pretend for anyone.”

  He shifts uncomfortably, then vacates his lounge against the pole and squats before her, eager to change the subject. “So what makes you such an expert on Andrew’s subtext?”

  Her lips quirk, on the cusp of a victorious smile. “Aww, poor wittle gawd. I wasn’t aware that his speech about magic was subtext. Or do you need the gist spelled out for you?”

  “Hun, I hardly need you to translate for me. Your mumbling and grumbling, moaning and groaning, cursing and whining, has always been tedious enough to comprehend.”

  Quick as flicking a pocketknife, she flips him her middle digit, the fingernail painted the same murky shade as her lips. “Can you comprehend this?”

  Envy chuckles meanly. “You lack originality, not to mention makeup that suits your skin tone.”

  “Now that you’ve listed your priorities in a soul mate, we can rest easy. Our chemistry, or lack thereof, is evidence that this legend is bogus. I’m condescending, and crude, and gruff. I don’t blush. I don’t pine. And I don’t mourn the loss of your dick, much less the flash of your pearly whites. Make no mistake, I tick none of your boxes, and I’m positive you wouldn’t even know what my own boxes are.”

  “Oh, I’ve located a couple of them.”

  She rolls her eyes. “I repeat: I don’t blush.”

  It’s a three-step process. His gaze slides to her arms, the undersides of which bear ladders of razor cuts. Then he taps the aesthetic dressing across her nose. Lastly, he draws out the next words, sewing every syllable into the space between them. “But you still break, don’t you? You sad, sad little goddess.”

  She recovers from the sucker punch. “You’re jealous that I understood Andrew while you didn’t. Because you hate being left out, because you want to be taken seriously even though you’ve got nothing to show for yourself but a glass arrow, a pretty face, and a fancy wardrobe that any of us can conjure. That’s the extent of your breakage. That’s as much as you know about being in pain.”

  “You’re one to talk,” he fires back. “You wouldn’t recognize the opposite of pain if it pinched your scrawny, pessimistic ass. If I know nothing about pain, then you know even less about pleasure. Fess up, Goddess of Sorrow. You’re a black cloud and a killjoy.”

  For a second, her eyes tremble like thawed ice, and her lips clamp shut. It’s such a candid reaction that Envy forgets to congratulate himself on the retort, which had come out sharper than intended.

  And louder. So loud that they could have been overheard in a soundproof room. Loud enough to yank everyone out of their slumber, causing them to gawk in his direction.

  Usually, Envy likes being the center of attention. But not at this juncture.

  Condemnation, this female has a talent for making the spotlight a cursed experience.

  “Have we interrupted a lover’s quarrel?” Merry yawns.

  “Seems to me, we interrupted a homicide,” Malice contests.

  “You interrupted nothing, because there’s nothing here,” Sorrow vents, gesturing between herself and Envy.

  “Precisely, so for the last time, stop getting your hopes up,” Envy sighs at the group. “Look, tropes are fine and dandy. I have nothing against forbidden love—” he indicates Love and Andrew, “or unrequited pining—,” he flicks his wrist toward Anger and Merry, “—or second chance romance,” he gestures to Wonder and Malice. “I don’t mind, especially if I’m reading erotica. But if you’re hoping for a marriage of convenience, you’ve got the wrong god and goddess.”

  “Courtship of convenience,” Andrew corrects.

  “Is that a trope?” Merry inquires.

  “It’s crap, is what it is,” Sorrow summarizes, her pupils hardening into stones, and the jaded tilt of her lips ascending farther up her face.

  Envy rises and straightens his ensemble, which is now dry. All the same, why the Fates does it take so much effort to maneuver his features into the right places, to toss an indifferent look Sorrow’s way? It’s irregular, when he’s spent his existence perfecting whatever expression benefitted him.

  This skill is supposed to come naturally, instinctively, like it has in the past. He’s rarely had to work at it before. In what universe is it suddenly a challenge?

  And why with her?

  Again, that unbidden memory surges to the forefront. A target range and countless faces watching Envy flat on his back, while a shadow leans over him to speak under its breath. He recalls how the words ground into his cranium and mottled his cheeks with humiliation.
/>   An ugly god is easy to spot.

  He thrusts those breadcrumbs from his mind. Sorrow’s opinion has never mattered. Not a bit. Growing up, her surliness had been a thorn in his side, as unattractive as her wardrobe. That’s all.

  Later—much later—only the decibel of her moans had held any magnitude with him. Naturally, they’d had their fun. Absolutely, he’d amused himself by flirting and holding her hand.

  Inevitably, he’d come to his senses. The grousing goddess had been nothing but a conquest, the triumph for which he’d repeatedly credited himself. Not that he’d doubted his prowess, but he deserves the gaudiest, most ostentatious trophy for bedding her.

  Actually, never mind the trophy. He’s earned a crown trimmed in diamonds for splitting her thighs as wide as he had.

  As for Sorrow’s judgements, viewpoints, assessments, reactions, impressions, assumptions, lamentations, presumptions, and whatever the fuck else he’s forgetting to include, it’s all still immaterial.

  Isn’t it? Why should any of the nonsense that drips from her mouth with the slow regularity of a leaky faucet bother him?

  To the pond, he’d pursued her. It had been his turn to keep watch while his friends slept. When he’d noted Sorrow’s absence, he had gone hunting for a glimpse of that purple hair, the splashes of water guiding him.

  What he had said about going there, intending to self-medicate his stress with a dose of masturbatory bliss had been a lie. He’d heard her leave around the same time he’d noted a shift in the wind and subtle cracks in the brambles.

  Already, Envy had sensed that strangers were near. He should have woken his comrades. He shouldn’t have prowled the woods for her.

  Had he been worried? Surely not. Sorrow can take care of herself, so that’s not why he went after her. He’d wanted to chide her for being careless—and maybe spy a little. Just a little, to see what she does when she’s by herself.

  He’d expected howling at the moon or something cliché like that.

  He hadn’t expected to find her swimming buck naked.

  Sorrow, swimming? Enjoying herself? Since when?

  The second phenomenon that Envy had endured was a demotion of sorts. For the first time in his life, he’d acted like a meddler, weaseling into a female’s personal space without being invited. He’s unaccustomed to intruding on his conquests. His lovers have only ever fluttered to him like pixies in heat. All he’s ever had to do was stand by and wait, perhaps crook his mouth into a smile.

  He has never been unwelcome. He has never been so thoroughly unwanted.

  Where the fuck are they going anyway?

  The cliffs have spread out. The river suctions on to the boat, the pole jiggling and spurting white flame. The gleaming motes writhe, indicating a rushing current.

  Ahead, the summit is closer than before. Water expands like a gasping lung, hurling a wet sheet at them. It lands with a great splatter and douses the band anew.

  In unison, they twist and gape at the chaos about to greet them.

  The stars glitter as if disappointed in Envy, because not only should he behave better, but while his friends slept, he should have paid attention.

  He should have remembered: Rivers have rapids.

  5

  Envy

  “What the Fates!” Anger hollers.

  “No freakin’ way!” Andrew screeches.

  “Fuck!” Malice drones.

  The rest is a jumble of masculine shouts as the river swallows their vessel. The females are the sober ones as they grab the ends of the star-shaped vessel and tug, directing it as best they can.

  That should be Envy’s job, but he’s too busy staring. White flames shoot from the pole, their light thrashing against the sky. The universe is all sound, sound, sound. Curses and bellows from the archers, roaring whooshes from the river. Great walls of water smack the boat’s tapered points, causing it to lurch in one direction, only for the transport to collide with another wave lashing in the opposite direction. Fluid lunges over the side, dousing everyone and flooding the floor.

  The world spins in a vortex, a blur of jostling bodies, bumpy seascapes, and jagged cliffs. Envy’s vision goes wild. Everything veers from side to side in an erratic mutiny of motion.

  Mist sprays his neck. Foam slides down his arms. Fluid clogs his throat.

  The rapids seize the vessel and yank on it, one way and then another, then another, then another. The boat tilts at an incline, lifts out of the water, rides the tail of a wave, and plunges into the brewing flux.

  While the females try to direct the vessel, the males fight to keep everyone’s weapons from disappearing over the sides. Arrows, longbows, and quivers scatter, each one slippery and impossible to grab. Anger dives to catch lengths of iron, then neon. Andrew bundles archery against his chest, wrestling to hold on. Malice throws quivers over his shoulder.

  Belatedly whipping open the lower compartment, Envy hollers for them to throw Merry’s skateboard and the weapons inside. They grapple, fumble, and flounder. At last, they manage to secure the assortment into the cubicle—all except for Love, Sorrow, and Envy, because the rapids are too damned manic.

  Love, Merry, Wonder, and Sorrow continue standing vigil at various points of the boat. Together, they heave, steering the vessel without knowing their orientation.

  “That way!” Love shouts.

  “Ease up, dearest!” Wonder cautions.

  “We defy you, mighty river!” Merry cries.

  Sorrow bellows something, but the crash of breakers against the bluffs washes out the words. Everybody stumbles in their struggle to stay upright. Their kind can last a while submerged without oxygen, however not forever. And that’s assuming the towering cliffs don’t flatten them.

  A blot slogs across the divide. Sloshing through the water, the figure draws near and then cuffs Envy upside the head, knocking him out of his stupor.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Sorrow spews into his face. “Get your celestial ass in gear!”

  With a backhanded swat of his arm, Envy knocks the harpy goddess aside. “Then kindly move out of my way.”

  As their transport crashes down the river, he snatches the pole and gives it a deft twist. At which point, they dodge a wave, and he continues to steer through the turbulence. Up ahead, the range swells larger than before, inches closer than before.

  A scanty weight barrels into his side, throwing him off balance. His back rams into the floor as a lanky body lands on top of him. Between the seaweed of her hair, Sorrow’s half-moon eyes pop out at him, those pupils inflamed and exasperated. In unison, their heads swing toward the pole, where an ice arrow has lodged itself.

  The waves must have caused the boat to launch a few renegade projectiles that escaped her quiver. If Sorrow hadn’t seen it happen, his head might be a pincushion by now. She doesn’t look interested in his gratitude, doesn’t act like it either when she fists his shirt collar and drags him up with her. Tottering upright, she darts back to her position without a backward glance.

  Envy lets the mortification roll off his shoulders and resumes his grasp on the pole. Dawn leaks into the firmament, its tint slathering the canopy. This quest becomes a push and pull, a tug-of-war without an ending.

  Envy’s muscles contract as he manipulates the pole. “Bear north!”

  The females grasp and exert pressure on the transport’s points—a less common way to steer—whirling them out of harm’s way, skating another onslaught. The river splits, one route spilling toward the summit and a shoreline, the other extending toward a realm of homes on stilts.

  The homes of their people. A certain path to imprisonment.

  Not if he has anything to say about it. He opens his mouth to howl another command, but a vicious slap of water slams into the boat. The liquid tail flicks at the air, whipping at the belly of a scanty passenger and tossing the body overboard like a ragdoll.

  Like it weighs nothing. Like it means nothing.

  Love screeches, Wonder gives a cry, and Merr
y bawls the figure’s name.

  Andrew leaps, Malice jets forward, and Anger thrusts out his arms. All three males snatch the goddesses before they cast themselves over, hauling the females backward and preventing them from being saviors. The goddesses keep shouting a name, the word buffeted by the rapids, but Envy doesn’t need silence in order to hear.

  He knows who they’re calling out for. He knows who went over.

  The boat makes a mad dash in the wrong direction, in the very wrong direction. His head leaps between one course and the other. His eyes jump from his friends to the sinking puddle of purple beneath the surface.

  It will be okay. She will be okay.

  She knows how to swim. She’ll live, and they’ll find her later. She’ll live, she’ll live, she’ll…oh, everlasting Fates!

  Envy gives a final wrench on the pole, driving the boat from its trajectory.

  Then he releases the shaft. Then he sighs.

  Then he hops onto the nearest ledge. Then he dives.

  The surface shoots toward him, consuming him whole. A funnel sucks him down, plugging his ears and battering his clothes—his clothes, which are ruined. He shall blame her for this. He shall blame her for forcing him to abandon their friends, not to mention his weaponry, the latter of which will likely go overboard as well.

  Yes, he shall do a thorough job blaming that spitfire goddess. Meanwhile, she won’t give a shit.

  Fine, he’ll make her give a shit. That will become his life’s purpose.

  He pumps, descending into an abyss void of sound or smell. It’s all satin qualities and metallic tastes down here.

  Those, plus sight. Glints of cerise and ruby underwater plants. A flash of multicolored scales as a serpent passes him, its diaphanous, corkscrew fins cutting through beams of starlight.

  Envy floats in place. His gaze darts, swerving here and there, hunting for unmistakable traces. Those shredded skirts, bloated from the current. Those boots, scuffed and old because she refuses to enchant new ones. The vest, accented with a stitching needle, a tool not for meant sewing but for mending gashes.

  If she were as flexible as Wonder, as spry as Love, or as alert as Merry, this wouldn’t have happened. He wouldn’t be down here, with froth spurting from his nose and his mane a knotted beast that’s come undone.